WSJ ad campaign targets women, young readers

Katherine Seelye of the New York Times takes a look at the Wall Street Journal’s new ad campaign in Thursday’s paper. One of the ads features singer Sheryl Crow

Seelye wrote, “As it happens, Ms. Crow did grow up reading The Journal, inspired by her grandmother, who was a newspaper editor and favored The Journal because she trusted it, according to promotional material from Dow Jones. (Ms. Crow was not available for comment.)

“It is not clear how The Journal found that Ms. Crow was a Journal reader and had an ink-stained background to boot. Gordon Bowen, creative director of McGarry Bowen, which developed the ads for The Journal, said the research methods for finding the Journal readers in the ads were proprietary, but he said the agency did not cull names from the paper’s subscription list, which he said would have been unethical.

“Mr. Bowen was asked if there was something especially challenging about creating advertising for a newspaper. His answer was one that the E.T.-like creature from the newspaper association would appreciate:

“’In a world of music and iPoding and electronic media, you have to find a way to communicate simply and graphically and in a way that is easily accessible to readers who can scan it and get it in 10 seconds or involve themselves for 30 seconds,’ Mr. Bowen said. ‘Especially with a younger audience. People are getting assaulted with a lot of stimulation.’â€?

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